Quick Fix Friday #5 – The Sub-Domain Switch

Recently, we worked with a client on some major site revisions. They came to us with a huge workload including translating many image files into functional site pages. Along the way, we also learned that part of their website overhaul would include transitioning hundreds of bundled products into simple products.

We had the client change over all of these products for use on our local demo site. This change was necessary so that we would be able to thoroughly test what the new site functionality would be like as we made the other changes.

Changing over 100’s of products can be a tedious task for the client. Typically, these sort of store changes would have to be re-done on their live server. We wanted to find a solution that would save our client the time of re-doing work they had already done for our demo environment once we pushed their new site live.

Problem: We wanted to avoid the client having to redo a significant amount of work on their live site that had already been done on our testing servers.

Once our developers had the demo site working the way the client wanted, we were ready to push their new site live. The developers and the project manager worked with the client’s hosting company to set up a sub-domain that was on their live server – the same server their live site was on. On this sub-domain, we were able to upload our entire demo database. This allowed the client not to have to re-do hours of work transferring their bundled products to simple products.

Once the database was uploaded onto the subdomain, our developers were able to forward the client’s previously existing site to that subdomain. Effectively keeping a secure copy of the client’s old database should they ever need to revert or refer to it for any reason.

Solution: Work with the hosting company to set up a subdomain to upload the full demo site onto and then forward the client’s website to the subdomain for a seamless transition.

Navigating this type of problem required excellent communication between our Project Manager and our developers and our client. Our Project Manager was able to determine what the best interest of the client was, and communicate that to both them and the developers working on the project, in a way that would allow us to find a solution.

We were able to provide a seamless, simple, smooth transition for the client with the least amount of additional workload for them – always a win in our book!